The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton travel from Boston to the North Carolina mountains to create a timber empire. George has already lived in the camp long enough to father an illegitimate child, but Serena is new to the mountains. She soon proves herself the equal of any man, and the ruthless lord and lady kill or vanquish all who fall out of favor. Then Serena learns that she can't bear children, and sets out to murder George's son.
My Rating: 3/5
This book was slow and was more about the lumberjacking business than anything else.
Both Serena and George (Mr Pemberton) were both not very likable characters. The only characters in the book that I even remotely liked were Rachel and Jacob and that was primarily because I felt sorry for them.
I loved how vivid the mountains and forest was portrayed as I was able to picture it strongly.
The last 100 or so pages was where I started getting into the story as it was more about the characters rather than the lumberjacking.
Apart from the very last twist in the book I found it really predictable.
I didn't enjoy the amount of animal brutality involved in this book. The animal v animal I understood as that was just nature but the human v animal aspects I thought were unwarranted.
This book was quite brutal at times with men loosing limbs, being beheaded, snake bites, being shot, poisoned and so I am looking forward to seeing how these parts are portrayed in the movie adaptation.
I think Ron Rash is a brilliant author. He explores an interesting side to human nature whilst creating an amazing backdrop of the North Carolinian mountains.
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